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87. While they remove carbon dioxide from the air, conserve soil and water, and house thousands of species, forests also supply potentially valuable pharmaceuticals, and, as sources of building material and firewood, that provide employment for millions worldwide. A. pharmaceuticals, and, as sources of building material and firewood, that provide "that"is used when something very important (essential) detail has to be introduced.Here,"that"is not necessary

B. pharmaceuticals, and sources of building material and firewood, are providers of irrelevant usage -"providers of"

C. pharmaceuticals and, as sources of building material and firewood that are provide irrelevant usage-that are "provide"

D. pharmaceuticals and as sources of building material and firewood, for providing

looks attractive because we have learnt the verb+ing modifier recently.(Verb+ing is used after a comma, so this option is anyway ruled out)

E. pharmaceuticals and, as sources of building material and firewood, provide

the confusion goes off when you read as=because;read it again.Also, you just consider that,forests also supply potentially valuable pharmaceuticals, and, as sources of building material and firewood, provide employment for millions worldwide. SUPPLY X,AND,Y structure.

In this sentence 'forests' do two things: A and B. Therefore we need Parallel structure. To elaborate: forests also Verb1 (supply) Phrase1, and Verb2 Phrase 2. Therefore we can home in right away at the end of the underlined part, looking for a verb that matches 'supply' in tense. The only answer that works is (E), which has 'provide.'

The other twist to this sentence is there is an interrupting phrase: '..., as sources of...firewood, ...'. An interruptor should be set off by a comma at the beginning of the phrase and one at the end of the phrase. Only (A) and (E) do so, however (A) is wrong because 'that provide' is not parallel to 'supply.'

The investigations of many psychologists and anthropologists support the generalization of there being little that is a significant difference in the underlying mental processes manifested by people from different cultures.

I personally feel that many of you have gotten confused in selecting the correct answer because the meaning of the sentence is not very clear. So let us first understand the meaning of the sentence. This sentence says that many psychologists and anthropologists carried out investigation and found out that there are very few aspects that are drastically different in the thought processes expressed by people belonging to different cultures.

Now that we understand the meaning, it’s time to figure out the errors in the sentence. The underlined phrase “of there being” does not clearly convey that this generalization is about something. Also this “little” itself is not a “significant difference”. There is little that is “significantly different”. Hence, this phrase has to be reworded too. Now let’s run the POE to get the correct answer.

POE:

Choice A: of there being little that is a significant difference: Incorrect for reason stated above.

Choice B: of there being little that is significantly different: Incorrect as it repeats the “of there being” issue as in Choice A.

Choice C: of little that is significantly different: Incorrect. This choice distorts the meaning of the sentence because now it says “generalization of little”. The generalization is not about little.

Choice D: that there is little that is significantly different: Correct. This choice corrects both the errors in the original sentence. What this generalization is about is absolutely clear from the “that clause”. Also, it correctly conveys that there is very little that is significantly different.

Choice E: that there is little of significant differences: Incorrect as “differences” is a countable noun and hence, we should use “few” and not “little”.

1. It is very important to understand the intended meaning of the sentence to arrive at the correct answer.2. Use correct expressions to clearly convey the intended meaning.

Hope this helps.Thanks.Shraddha _________________

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Re: While they remove carbon dioxide from the air [#permalink]
21 Nov 2013, 11:52

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Re: While they remove carbon dioxide from the air
[#permalink]
21 Nov 2013, 11:52